"It's a constant struggle because this community has systematically been looked over," she said.

Among Mrs. Ferguson's pet peeves are the 18-wheel tractor-trailers that sometimes park illegally there and what she calls lax enforcement of city housing codes.

"If it was Bolton Hill," she said, pointing to one crumbling property, "they would have been in there on the dime."

Mrs. Ferguson is worried now about who will become principal of Harlem Park Middle School -- she thinks the school has often been a dumping ground for administrators and teachers unwanted elsewhere and sent her own children to private schools -- and about the mini-billboards that dot the area, which she says are illegal and hawk alcohol and cigarettes to poor people.

But she says programs to promote homeownership in the area appear to be gathering momentum, and Lafayette Square with its stately town houses makes a solid centerpiece for neighborhood improvement.

When city life weighs too heavily on her, Mrs. Ferguson says, "I go in my house, close the windows, put the air conditioning on, and I don't know what's going on outside."

Had she moved to the suburbs, "I'd have less gray hair and less stress, and I wouldn't spend all my time worrying about who's going to be principal of the middle school," she conceded. "The only thing I'd worry about is would the Klan get ahold of me and would I get home in one piece," she said.